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stealie72 posted:I had mine crushed by my inability to not get nauseous on things as innocuous as a merry go round. Stupid lovely inner ear. AlternateAccount posted:Speaking for myself, no amount of OH YOU DID YOURSELF A FAVOR will ever, ever wash away the pain of not being able to fly F-15s because of my only marginally not-good-enough eyesight. Sjurygg posted:Maybe Shia pilots? Highly unlikely, I must admit. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 09:26
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Totally TWISTED posted:I know PRK wasn't an option around 2000-2003 when I asked a recruiter when I was in high school. No flying my dream F-16 for me PRK was absolutely allowed by 04, so you were almost certainly lied to by the recruiter. To be a pilot you have to be an officer, which means you'd go to a special recruiter and this dude wouldn't get credit for
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Jan 14, 2014 14:29
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Dead Reckoning posted:Fun fact, you can actually train yourself not to get motion sick. Or you can just gut through it like a guy in my flight school class did. Haha, this sounds like there was a guy zooming around the skies in a trainer jet filled to the gunwales with chunder.
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Jan 14, 2014 15:44
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Dead Reckoning posted:My point was more that, if you got eliminated at the eyesight test phase, there were still a lot more hurdles between you and that sweet F-15/Herk/SR-71 stick time that you hadn't even seen yet (no pun intended) some of which are quite arbitrary. If you hit some of those hurdles, you fall hard. You might have graduated top 1/3 of your flight school class only to be told, "sorry no F-15s this month. How do you feel about AWACS?" I've come closer to the brass ring than most here, take it from me. No way, I would have totally made it.  Alright, fine, odds are it's better to wash out before even showing up rather than have a bitter and disillusion military career :\Is there a political aspect to who gets what sort of assignment? My nightmare is that it would be a lot like the corporate world...
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Jan 14, 2014 15:50
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Godholio posted:...so you were almost certainly lied to by the recruiter.... Well yeah, his lips were moving.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:10
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Godholio posted:PRK was absolutely allowed by 04, so you were almost certainly lied to by the recruiter. To be a pilot you have to be an officer, which means you'd go to a special recruiter and this dude wouldn't get credit for When I spoke to the recruiter it was more like 2000 really (I want to say it was my sophomore year). Graduated 2003 from HS having done army jrotc and then did army rotc for a few years. So possibly the blame falls on me for not following up closer to graduation but honestly by that point my grades were not straight A pilot material. Ok well that's some Cold War E/N for you.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:36
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AlternateAccount posted:Is there a political aspect to who gets what sort of assignment? My nightmare is that it would be a lot like the corporate world... Absolutely. Ultimately your plane selection is determined by your instructors/Leadership who judge you behind closed doors, on whatever criteria they feel pertinent at the time. Additionally, the "drop" (assignments) for your class is for all the pilot training bases, arbitrarily split between the training wings by AFPC. The Wing Commanders then horse-trade the assignments based on what they want to give their students. Hope you have someone going to bat for you with the boss you hopefully never met in person in order to get one of the two F-15s that dropped for 80+ students! (If any dropped at all.)
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Jan 14, 2014 18:45
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Vindolanda posted:Haha, this sounds like there was a guy zooming around the skies in a trainer jet filled to the gunwales with chunder. AlternateAccount posted:No way, I would have totally made it. Good luck! Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 20:13
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Wow, that's viciously depressing. Is most of this accurate historically or is this a more recent development?
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Jan 14, 2014 20:17
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This is why I just stick to flight sims...
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Jan 14, 2014 20:19
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AlternateAccount posted:Wow, that's viciously depressing. Is most of this accurate historically or is this a more recent development? World War 2 memoirs are full of dudes who wanted to fly Mustangs and ended up flying transport aircraft, getting stuck as bombardiers or navigators, etc. Christ, the worst are the poor fuckers who got drawn off to be glider pilots. They got the twin fun of having one of the highest death/injury rates of any pilots in the USAAF PLUS all the fun of getting to be infantry for a couple of weeks after "landing" with their cargo.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:World War 2 memoirs are full of dudes who wanted to fly Mustangs and ended up flying transport aircraft, getting stuck as bombardiers or navigators, etc. Christ, the worst are the poor fuckers who got drawn off to be glider pilots. They got the twin fun of having one of the highest death/injury rates of any pilots in the USAAF PLUS all the fun of getting to be infantry for a couple of weeks after "landing" with their cargo. Was it the British or the Americans who didn't even train their glider pilots as infantry but still leave them in the combat zone for the entire operation?
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Jan 14, 2014 20:50
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There's actually a way to short-cut the whole process: join the Air National Guard. Air Guard guys don't have to compete: they will fly whatever aircraft the unit they joined flies, and if they wash out for non-medical and non-criminal reasons, the Training Command call their unit and asks, "should we give this guy another shot?" The flipside is that joining an Air Guard unit is unashamedly political: they can more or less hire whoever they want without needing to justify it. So you have to find a Guard unit that flies the plane you want, that has an opening (because someone died or retired), that likes you more than everyone else competing for the spot. Oh, and Guard units can be made to convert to a different aircraft at the whims of Congress.AlternateAccount posted:Wow, that's viciously depressing. Is most of this accurate historically or is this a more recent development? It comes and it goes. During the post Cold War drawdown, there was so little demand for pilots that Pilot Training bases would take every other Friday off. At one point they had what was euphemistically called the "banked pilot program" where recent flight school graduates were sent to desk jobs for 2+ years with the promise that they would be allowed to come back to a flying assignment once manning stabilized. Most of them eventually ended up back in the cockpit, but a few...
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Jan 14, 2014 20:51
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The last time I looked the only officer positions available in the Virginia Air National Guard were for doctors.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:58
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I remember reading some WW2 memoir where a friend of the author was a civilian air racer, barnstormer and all around crack pilot. When they found out he was Jewish he ended up as a navigator because Jews are good with numbers.
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Jan 14, 2014 21:00
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AlternateAccount posted:Wow, that's viciously depressing. Welcome to the USAF! Enjoy your mandatory stay, length and location subject to the
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Jan 14, 2014 21:09
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Dead Reckoning posted:Most of them eventually ended up back in the cockpit, but a few...  ?
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Jan 14, 2014 21:10
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Via wiki: As of 2012, the service operates 5,484 aircraft and 332,854 active personnel. Via the Airforce: The Air Force has 14,264 pilots and 64,104 Officers total. So roughly 1/4 of officers are pilots, and those pilots are fighting for roughly 1/3 their number in slots. 2281 of those Aircraft are fighters(or A-10s, because everyone loves A-10s). And over half those fighters are F-16s. we only have a couple hundred of anything else.
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Jan 14, 2014 21:34
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I guess I'd never really sat down to work out the obvious math. There just aren't that many zoom zoom planes to go around. I'd fly A-10s in a second though. I've met pilots here and there over the years and A-10 pilots were far and away the ones that I would most want to fly/work with every day, based on that anecdotal sample.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:36
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Alaan posted:Via wiki: As of 2012, the service operates 5,484 aircraft and 332,854 active personnel. Don't USAF units have more pilots than they have aircrafts, usually?
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Jan 14, 2014 22:45
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AlternateAccount posted:I'd fly A-10s in a second though. I've met pilots here and there over the years and A-10 pilots were far and away the ones that I would most want to fly/work with every day, based on that anecdotal sample. FrozenVent posted:Don't USAF units have more pilots than they have aircrafts, usually?
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Jan 14, 2014 22:57
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Dead Reckoning posted:It comes and it goes. During the post Cold War drawdown, there was so little demand for pilots that Pilot Training bases would take every other Friday off. At one point they had what was euphemistically called the "banked pilot program" where recent flight school graduates were sent to desk jobs for 2+ years with the promise that they would be allowed to come back to a flying assignment once manning stabilized. Most of them eventually ended up back in the cockpit, but a few... The Navy in the early '00s was running something like a year backlog at flight school. One of my college bros was forced to cool his heels waiting all that time to class up, getting officer pay in Pensacola that whole time with no real duties and responsibilities beyond keeping fit and staying out of trouble. I can only imagine how hellish that was.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:07
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Cyrano4747 posted:Christ, the worst are the poor fuckers who got drawn off to be glider pilots. They got the twin fun of having one of the highest death/injury rates of any pilots in the USAAF PLUS all the fun of getting to be infantry for a couple of weeks after "landing" with their cargo. I met a docent at the Lyon Air Museum by John Wayne Airport who had been a glider pilot. He explained with pride that he had made four safe landings in Normandy and Holland, but it sounded like a really hairy assignment (even before the gliders were launched; each C-47 would pull two gliders, and the pilots of each would have to keep on their toes the whole way to keep from hitting each other.)
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Jan 14, 2014 23:22
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StandardVC10 posted:I met a docent at the Lyon Air Museum by John Wayne Airport who had been a glider pilot. He explained with pride that he had made four safe landings in Normandy and Holland, but it sounded like a really hairy assignment (even before the gliders were launched; each C-47 would pull two gliders, and the pilots of each would have to keep on their toes the whole way to keep from hitting each other.) Jesus gently caress.  That guy told death to go gently caress itself, and then drove off into the sunset with deaths girlfriend. My paternal grandfather was a glider pilot, but never made a combat landing. He was pacific bound when the war ended.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:33
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The best part is that glider pilots and glider infantry got no additional pay or recognition. That changed after some high rank or reporter did a ride along and realized "holy poo poo this is way worse than parachuting".
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Jan 14, 2014 23:50
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Smiling Jack posted:The best part is that glider pilots and glider infantry got no additional pay or recognition. Can't have hurt that they lost a goddamned general in one of those things. I think it was the XO of the 82nd? Basically they up-armored the glider right before the flight and only told the pilot a few minutes before take off. That coupled with a wet LZ and a lovely slope for landing led them to skid into a hedgerow and the general broke his neck.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:04
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Cyrano4747 posted:Can't have hurt that they lost a goddamned general in one of those things. I think it was the XO of the 82nd? Basically they up-armored the glider right before the flight and only told the pilot a few minutes before take off. That coupled with a wet LZ and a lovely slope for landing led them to skid into a hedgerow and the general broke his neck. You're thinking of a scene in Saving Private Ryan which was based off of a real incident, except it wasn't up-armoring but a slippery LZ and bad luck that killed the real guy, who was ADC of the 101st.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:11
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Gliders were cool stateside as well. One folded up over Lambert field. Killed the Mayor of St. Louis and 9 other Whos, including the guy who owned the company that built the glider. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19430802&id=k2lIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GlUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5318,3456268
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Jan 15, 2014 00:28
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:You're thinking of a scene in Saving Private Ryan which was based off of a real incident, except it wasn't up-armoring but a slippery LZ and bad luck that killed the real guy, who was ADC of the 101st. Figures. I knew slippery grass had something to do with it.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:50
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:You're thinking of a scene in Saving Private Ryan which was based off of a real incident, except it wasn't up-armoring but a slippery LZ and bad luck that killed the real guy, who was ADC of the 101st. The up-armoring didn't help. "After all of the photographs with Murphy, his copilot, Pratt, and his aide were taken, the Fighting Falcon became the ship for a lesser crew while the VIPs were slated for one of the safer models. Into that glider went the general's jeep, the command radio he anticipated using, and some extra cans of gasoline for the vehicle. The weight slightly exceeded the safe load limits of cargo for a CG-4A, but Murphy, an extremely skilled pilot, felt confident he could handle it. However, unknown to him, members of Pratt's staff concerned for the general's survival arranged to install sheet iron plates on the cargo compartment floor to protect against ground fire. The added weight amounted to a gross overload and destroyed the usual flight trim of the glider. [...] 'And that's why Murphy utilized ever bit of speed from the tow to gain as much altitude as possible; he had no idea how the glider would behave in free flight, except that the glide ratio would be like that of a flat rock. To keep from stalling into a crash he had to fly at speeds much above normal. Consequently he hit the landing field like a meteor. Combine that with the downhill slope of a wet, grassy field and they had no chance.'" Went pretty much like described in SPR. http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0440236975
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Jan 15, 2014 01:04
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^^^ Didn't the Jeep come loose and crush him, breaking his neck? I haven't seen SPR in awhile.AlternateAccount posted:I guess I'd never really sat down to work out the obvious math. There just aren't that many zoom zoom planes to go around. I've only met two A-10 pilots, they came in to Stewart for the weekend for something and I ran into them at a local Burger King. One of them liked my truck and struck up a conversation about it. Real cool dudes. One looked almost identical to Willem Dafoe in Flight of the Intruder. Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 01:18
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VikingSkull posted:^^^ Didn't the Jeep come loose and crush him, breaking his neck? I haven't seen SPR in awhile. Everything I've read/remember only indicated he broke his neck as a result of whiplash from the rather sudden deceleration when the glider hit the hedgerow.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:02
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Cyrano4747 posted:World War 2 memoirs are full of dudes who wanted to fly Mustangs and ended up flying transport aircraft, getting stuck as bombardiers or navigators, etc. Christ, the worst are the poor fuckers who got drawn off to be glider pilots. They got the twin fun of having one of the highest death/injury rates of any pilots in the USAAF PLUS all the fun of getting to be infantry for a couple of weeks after "landing" with their cargo. My grandfather went to flight school, but ended up driving a forklift at Pearl Harbor during the war due to a ruptured eardrum*. *That was the family story. It turns out that he just wasn't very good at flying. I have his logbook.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:42
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PhotoKirk posted:My grandfather went to flight school, but ended up driving a forklift at Pearl Harbor during the war due to a ruptured eardrum*. Probably for the best. Green pilots did not last long on either side in the Pacific early in the war. Doubly so when aircraft carriers were involved.
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Jan 15, 2014 04:02
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My grandfather started flight school too, but ended up a radar countermeasure operator in the 36th.
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Jan 15, 2014 04:19
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WT Wally posted:My grandfather started flight school too, but ended up a radar countermeasure operator in the 36th. My grandfather didn't go to flight school, but ended up in a 8th AAF maintenance unit with a license to steal every goddamned thing he could get his hands on: 
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Jan 15, 2014 04:22
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WT Wally posted:My grandfather started flight school too, but ended up a radar countermeasure operator in the 36th. One of my grandfathers ended up flying F6 corsairs. The other joined the navy in 1945 and was on a destroyer for a few months before it ate a kamikaze and immediately steamed back to the states to repair.
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Jan 15, 2014 04:24
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One of my grandfathers found on arriving at boot camp in Texas that something about the heat and humidity caused a preexisting head injury to give him debilitating migraines. They were so bad that the Army ended up using him in a research project for experimental brain surgery. Luckily enough he was one of the control subjects, while most of the guys who they dug into died or were never quite right again. They medically discharged him at the end of the trial at some base in Texas and told him to find his own way back to the PNW.
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Jan 15, 2014 04:31
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Phanatic posted:My grandfather didn't go to flight school, but ended up in a 8th AAF maintenance unit with a license to steal every goddamned thing he could get his hands on: My other grandfather was a clerk for a B-17 group in England. He became a scrounger/horse trader of legendary renown. I like to think he was the inspiration for Milo Minderbender.
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Jan 15, 2014 04:42
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My grandpa flew Bolingbrookes (Canadian version of the Blenheim) and Beaufighters. Bombed a whale in the St. Lawrence, thinking it was a U-Boat. He also surfed a mattress in a hotel room flooded with beer which caused him to be reduced in rank. He rescued a crew from a crashed and burning airplane during training which saw him get Mentioned in Despatches. He grew into an old man who loved dick and fart jokes and babies. His military service which he told me about does not match up with the medals he gave me (More medals than stories) so I need to get his records one of these days but there are limits on who can access that information. mikerock fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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